Mac returned the nod. “How you holding up?”
“Better every day.”
“I can see that.”
They moved through older sections where the walls shifted from reinforced concrete to worn granite blocks set generations earlier. Electric lights ran in discreet lines along the ceiling, but the spaces above them disappeared into shadow, the structure extending in ways that suggested far more than what lay open to view.
Mac slowed slightly, attentive, his gaze moving over junctions and passages that branched away without explanation.
“You come here much?” Mac asked.
“A few times.”
Mac nodded. “Didn’t realize how big it was.”
“Most people don’t.”
Even Melvin knew only part of it. The Council chamber lay beyond heavy doors of dark wood banded with iron worn smooth by generations of hands. Reynolds opened one side and stepped back, and the three of them entered together.
Several members of the Council waited inside, their attention settling with the quiet patience of people accustomed to observing before speaking.
Reynolds moved forward first. Melvin and Mac followed.
One of the senior Stewards inclined his head. “Lieutenant Carter.”
Mac returned the gesture. “Sir.”
The Steward’s attention shifted briefly to Melvin, then to Reynolds. “It is good to see your recovery progressing.”
Reynolds nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The questions that followed were measured. Reynolds’ training and stability. The transition. What he remembered of the crossing. Melvin answered where he could, Reynolds where it was his place to speak, and Mac mostly listened.
At one point Melvin became aware of how carefully the Council watched both him and Mac, not individually but together, as if the space between them held as much interest as either of them alone. Nothing was said about it.
When the meeting ended, it did so without ceremony, the Council’s attention shifting elsewhere with practiced efficiency.
As they stepped back into the corridor, Mac glanced once at the doors behind them. “You said this was a training facility.”
“It is.”
Mac swept his eyes over the passage stretching ahead. “That’s not all it is.”
Melvin didn’t answer.
Reynolds led them deeper into one of the reinforced training chambers where the architecture shifted back toward practical design, thick concrete walls, overhead lighting protected behind metal grates, the air faintly warm from systems that kept the space stable no matter what happened inside.
The room was larger than it looked from the doorway, the floor covered with heavy matting worn smooth from countless shifts.
Mac took it in the way he took in any unfamiliar ground, noting distances and exits without appearing to.
“This where they’ve been working with you?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Mac gave a short nod. “Good space.”
Melvin leaned back against the wall, arms folded loosely, watching Reynolds.
